Sunday 18 May 2014

When is enough - enough?



Three edits ago I decided that this latest edit of Spawn Of Kongomato would be the last.
    I'd successfully annihilated all grammatical and punctuation mistakes – although a few will slip through. I’ve never read a book in my life without at least three. All plot holes are firmly sealed and all pointless words put up against the literary wall and shot - if you catch my drift.
     Yet then  I thought: if I could just change that to this, and alter that bit slightly, and on and on until I did it again.
    Now, three edits later, I think I’ve gone far enough even though I know that if I just change a little part of chapter X and maybe shorten chapter Y then...
    When is enough, enough?
    I’ve heard painters say that the hardest part of producing a picture is knowing when to stop. I used to love an imported US programme on TV featuring a man who painted the most marvellous pictures before us. His work was astounding but I always felt that he should have stopped a lot earlier than he did.
    But that is the paradox. When should we stop? While I’m moderately happy with it as it stands, I know that I’ll never be thrilled. That doesn’t mean I’m publishing second best but simply that I know I can’t make it any better.
    Is that the same thing?

8 comments:

  1. When you... good question.

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  2. Ugh, I don't think it ever stops. Good blog post. I always think I've finally reached the end of editing and revising, yet when I check my work again, there's still more to do.

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  3. If that painting show was The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, I agree with you - he should have stopped sooner quite often. But his work was always spectacular in the end, and I can't see a tree or a cloud without thinking of them as happy and little. :)

    But knowing when to stop is tricky. I thought I knew when to stop on The Lokana Chronicles, but then I tried querying and learned that I should have kept on going. I just hope that this rewrite will be the last for this project.

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  4. You hope, but deep down you know it won't be. I think I'm a perfectionist but my beloved just calls me a pedantic old git.

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  5. Hi Roger great blog, if I would dare be give advice to you? then it would to be, be an old pedantic git like me and above all be lazy. be well Agman.
    You just cannot beat a beloved comment.

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  6. Thanks, I will. unfortunately pedantic is the least obscene (or perhaps truthful) thing she calls me.

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  7. Enough is enough - time to let your adoring public read the thing!!
    I feel I must add one of these ;o) here – just so you know I’m joking

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  8. Hokey dokey. A third of the way through the last edit, then I'll begin the process of CreateSpace-ing it. Ths time I might use Kaliber.

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